Constructing and Refining Computer Science Outreach Focused On

Paper ID #31078

Constructing and Reﬁning Computer Science Outreach Focused on Student Engagement

Shaya Wolf, University of Wyoming Shaya Wolf ([email protected]) is currently pursuing her Ph.D. at the University of Wyoming. Af- ter completing Bachelors degrees in Math and Computer Science, her research focused on distributed systems,industrial control system security, and encryption mechanisms. She is currently working on distributed continuous authentication systems, consensus protocols, and secure embedded intelligence. Her interests also extend to cybersecurity competitions and K12 computer science/cybersecurity outreach and education. Mr. Rafer Cooley, University of Wyoming Rafer Cooley is pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Wyoming focusing on secure distributed systems. His interests include bio-inspired algorithms, Complex Adaptive Systems, and network protocols. He is currently working on bio-inspired solutions for securing industrial control systems. Mr. Mason Johnson, University of Wyoming Dr. Andrea Carneal Burrows, University of Wyoming Dr. Andrea C. Burrows is an Associate Professor at the University of Wyoming (UW) in the College of Education’s (CoEd) School of Teacher Education.She received her doctorate degree from the University of Cincinnati in 2011.She was awarded the UW CoEd Early Career Fellowship (2013), UW CoEd Fac- ulty Award for Outstanding Research and Scholarship (2015), UW CoEd Faculty Award for Outstanding Service to the Education Profession (2016), UW CoEd Honored Fall Convocation Faculty (2017), and UW CoEd Faculty Award for Outstanding Research and Scholarship (2019).Since beginning at UW, Bur- rows has written, implemented, or evaluated over 50 unique grants. She has been the Program Director for GenCyber as well as PI of NSF grants for STEM and CS work. The core of her research agenda is to deepen science, mathematics, engineering, and technology (STEM) partnership involvement and un- derstanding through STEM interdisciplinary integration with in-service teacher professional development (PD) and pre-service teacher coursework. Her research agenda is composed of a uniﬁed STEM education partnership structure and connects educational research to real-world practices.Burrows’ many publica- tions appear in leading journals.She is the Co-Editor ofCITE-Journal Science(www.citejournal.org). She is active and presents in several organizations such as AERA, ASEE, ASTE, NSTA, and SITE.Before beginning her work in higher education, she taught secondary school science for 12 years in Florida and Virginia (USA). Dr. Mike Borowczak, University of Wyoming Dr. Mike Borowczak is an Assitant Professor of Computer Science and the Director of the Cybersecurity Education and Research center (CEDAR) at the University of Wyoming. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering (2013) as well as his BS in Computer Engineering (2007) from the University of Cincinnati. His research focused on detection and prevention of information leakage from hardware side channels. His current research interests include investigating the safety, resilience, and security of decentralized components, devices, and system architectures from theoretical modeling, to simulation and practical implementations. He is also involved in K-20 CS/cybersecurity education research and was the 2019 RMS ASEE conference co-chair. Mike also has over a decade of industry and research experience – mostly revolving around the semicon- ductor and bioinformatics industries – with speciﬁc experience at Texas Instruments, Intel, and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. In addition to his industry experience, Mike spent two years, while completing his Ph.D., as a National Science Foundation GK-12 fellow – teaching and bringing real- world STEM applications in two urban high schools. Since then, he has worked with university faculty to promote and extend K20 STEM outreach in Ohio, Oregon, Texas, and Wyoming. He has authored peer-reviewed articles and papers, presented at national and international conferences, and taught under- graduate/graduate courses in Computer Security, Data Mining, VLSI and pedagogy in STEM.

c American Society for Engineering Education, 2020 Constructing and Refining Engaging Objectives Computer Science Outreach olunteers focused on three main objectives: V 1. Engage the participants during sessions through associating lessons with familiar concepts and suitable Shaya Wolf, Rafer Cooley, Mason Johnson, Andrea Burrows, Mike Borowczak applications. These real-world connections were made explicitly to the students. {swolf4, rcooley2, mjohn107, Andrea.Burrows, Mike.Borowczak}@uwyo.edu 2. Reach for computer science concepts beyond coding. Volunteers developed coursework built on foundational skills such as creative problem solving, communication, teamwork, and critical thinking. Abstract & Motivation 3. Improve instructional techniques throughout the different camps to provide a high-quality educational experience that is up-to-date with current cybersecurity issues. he current state of computer science education has garnered concern across the world as the demand for T computer science literacy has grown in professional careers. Computer science is integral to problem Results & Discussion solving across the STEM field. Motivated by the need to teach students crucial computer science skills, outreach camps were held for middle and high school students and specifically focused on cybersecurity. This research esults were measured using identical pre-surveys and post-surveys that asked the students the same questions focused on two main questions: R before and after the camp activities. This answers our two main research questions. 1. How do week-long outreach activities impact student interest in cybersecurity? The surveys indicated a rise in interest after In the surveys, students showed more attention to the 2. How do these activities influence student behavior online? 1 the camp with 65% reporting high interest. 2 implications of their behavior online after the camp. Background revious research in this field has shown that: P- Computer science should be integrated in STEM fields. - There is a profound need for proper K-12 Computer Science Education - The introduction of computer science education legislation has challenged teachers who are under- prepared for instructing computer science. - Outreach camps can have a positive influence on students learning about computer science. Instruction Techniques

hese outreach events were focused on maintaining engagement while progressing through a series of computer science and cybersecurity lessons. Researchers favored student-centered, hands-on activities. To The volunteers met the objectives for the camps. The activities engaged the participants seen both in the 17.5% Tgauge the success of the events, learning artifacts were collected from the participants that showed both the increase in interest level as well as comments from students indicating that they would participate in this camp qualitative and quantitative results of the sessions. The camps included many different instruction platforms, again. Also, utilizing familiar concepts and suitable applications aided in increasing content knowledge. Further, ranging from class-wide conversations, large group collaboration, small team problem solving, and individual the coursework was developed with a mix of foundational skills (such as coding) and soft skills (such as problem concept interpretation. solving and teamwork). Lastly, using these results, volunteers can enhance future opportunities. • Students were asked to reflect on their learning individually to provide an Individual indication of their progress interest level, and content knowledge. This was Reflection done through drawings, worksheets, and surveys. Conclusions & Future Work • Small team problem solving was student-led during hands-on hese outreach camps have aided in the creation of more outreach opportunities, including additional Small Group programming labs. The students were given real world problems then camps and professional developments for teachers. These include: Labs guided to possible solutions within small teams (2-5 students). -TWeek-long outreach camps for middle and high school students and teachers • Large group collaborations were led by university students. They - Week-long outreach camps for elementary school students and teachers Large Group drove conversations with the participants about notions - Outreach opportunities for teachers to earn micro credentials Collaboration introduced by the class-wide conversations (5-10 students). - 1-2 day professional developments to help elementary school teachers meet engineering education standards • Class-wide conversations were driven by volunteers with - Week-long professional developments to help K-8 teachers integrate computer science lessons in their curriculum experience in education and focused on introducing main - Various professional developments to help teachers intermix computer science lessons into their classrooms Class-Wide Conversations ideas and foundational concepts (25-30 students). This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number DRL #1923542 and by the National Security Agency under Grant Numbers H98230-18-1-0095 and H98230-19-1-0095.

[1] “2019 state of computer science education,” 2019, retrieved from https://advocacy.code.org/. [Online]. [2] K. Falkner and R. Vivian, “A review of computer science resources for learning and teaching with k-12 computing curricula: An Australian case study,” Computer Science Education, vol. 25, no. 4, pp. 390–429, 2015.